Published 5:41 pm, Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Inadequate levels of vitamin D may increase the risk for uterine fibroids, a new study reports.

Vitamin D has been associated with reduced risk for various diseases, but this is the first to examine the connection to fibroids, benign tumors of the uterus that can cause pain and bleeding.

Researchers randomly selected 620 black and 410 white women, ages 35 to 49, and determined their vitamin D levels with blood tests and their health status with questionnaires. Their analysis appears in the May issue of Epidemiology.

About two-thirds of the women had fibroid tumors. In the entire group, only 10 percent of the black women and 50 percent of white women had vitamin D levels higher than 20 nanograms per milliliter, generally considered an adequate level.

They found that having a vitamin D level higher than 20 decreased the risk for fibroids by 32 percent.

Study: Higher resting heart rate, shorter life span

A study published last week in Heart suggests that a higher resting heart rate is an independent predictor of mortality.

Danish researchers gave physical exams to 5,249 healthy middle-aged and older men beginning in 1971. In 1985 and 1986, they tracked survivors, of whom there were 3,354. Of these, 2,798 had sufficient data on heart rate and oxygen consumption for the analysis. Researchers followed them through 2011.

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They found the higher the resting heart rate, the greater risk for death. Compared with men with rates of 50 beats a minute or less, those at 71 to 80 beats had a 51 percent greater risk. At 81 to 90 beats, the death rate doubled; more than 90 it was tripled.

Study: Occasional drink not harmful during pregnancy

The federal guidelines on drinking during pregnancy are clear: Stick to abstinence.